North Carolina State Representative Tries to Bully the ACC

Fans line up to enter Bank of America Stadium for the ACC Championship game between North Carolina and Clemson on Saturday, December 5, 2015, at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Photo: Robert Willett, The News & Observer

In the surreal world of politics where trying to keep a base vote is more important than common sense, a North Carolina House member Chris Mills obviously has no clue as to how the college sports world operates.

Representative Mills has filed a bill before the April 27 legislation deadline that is designed to show the Atlantic Coast Conference who is the boss. H.B. 728 or The UNC Institutions/Conference Boycott bill dares the ACC to pull any sort of conference tournament playoff or championship game from North Carolina if the ACC does not like legislation such as the Bathroom Bill which the college group felt was discriminatory.

The ACC did pull a conference championship football game from Charlotte last year. H. B. 728’s penalty? North Carolina would immediately order two state schools, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State to leave the conference.

Here is the problem Mills and his fellow co-sponsors face. No other conference will take the two schools knowing that lawmakers are trying to bully them with legislation because some politicians’ feelings were hurt. The other. It costs a lot of money for that shiny trophy that the University of North Carolina got by winning the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. The staff has to be paid, travel has to be paid and campus arenas maintained.

In the 2014-2015 fiscal year, the ACC took in $403.1 million in revenue with approximately $373 million going to member schools. The average payout to each school was about $26 million. Under H. B. 728, North Carolina would be in the hole for $52 million based on 2015 figures. That’s how the college game works.

In 2016, the ACC got $55 million from TV for college football bowl games. Mills belong to the party that is free market based. If the market says boycott, too bad. It is the free market.

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